page_title: Deerfoot Trail
section_title: Traffic and collisions
hierarchical_section_title: Deerfoot Trail / Route description / Traffic and collisions
caption_attribution_description: English: Deerfoot Trail at 17 Ave SE
context_page_description: Deerfoot Trail is a 46.4-kilometre freeway segment of Highway 2 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It stretches the entire length of the city from south to north and links suburbs to downtown via Memorial Drive and 17 Avenue SE. It also forms part of the CANAMEX Corridor which connects Calgary to Edmonton and Interstate 15 in the United States via Highways 3 and 4. The freeway begins south of Calgary where it splits from Macleod Trail, crosses the Bow River into city limits, and reaches the Stoney Trail ring road. Crisscrossing twice more with the river, it intersects Glenmore Trail and Memorial Drive; the former is a major east–west expressway while the latter is a freeway spur into downtown. In north Calgary, it crosses Highway 1 and passes Calgary International Airport before ending at a second interchange with Stoney Trail. Highway 2 becomes the Queen Elizabeth II Highway as it continues north into Rocky View County towards Edmonton.
  Originally called Blackfoot Trail Freeway upon the opening of the first section in 1971, it was renamed in 1974 to honour Deerfoot, a late 19th century Siksika Nation long distance runner known for his exceptional speed.
context_section_description: Deerfoot Trail is Alberta's busiest highway by a significant margin over Glenmore Trail, with peak daily congestion lasting as many as four hours. Its most travelled stretch is between Memorial Drive and 16 Avenue NE (Trans-Canada Highway) as traffic from Calgary's northern and eastern suburbs converge to travel via Memorial Drive into downtown, in addition to traffic transiting the city and other intra-city trips. The freeway was designed to carry approximately 65,000 vehicles per day but carried 173,500 vehicles between Memorial Drive and Highway 1 in 2019.
  In late 2013, the southeastern segment of Stoney Trail was opened to traffic. In conjunction with the northeast portion which opened in 2009, it formed a full eastern bypass of Calgary providing an alternate route for traffic transiting the city.  Traffic levels on Deerfoot Trail decreased in the year following the opening, but have since risen to pre-Stoney levels.  In a 2016 study, Calgary ranked tenth in traffic congestion among major Canadian cities, with drivers spending nearly 16 hours of the year in standstill traffic.
  The excessive volume of traffic on Deerfoot Trail is a contributing factor to the 10,000 collisions recorded between 2002 and 2007, including 24 fatalities.  Constable Jeff Klatt of the Calgary Police Service stated that there is a "consensus among police officers that it’s dangerous to do traffic stops" on Deerfoot Trail.  A 1993 incident in which a stolen vehicle struck and killed a police officer on Deerfoot was the catalyst for the Calgary Police Service's acquisition of a helicopter.  2013 statistics confirmed that Deerfoot Trail had more crashes and traffic jams than any other road in Calgary.  Deerfoot has many entrances and exits in close proximity which exacerbates problems, but some have attributed a portion of the congestion to driver error. Constable Jim Lebedeff of the Calgary Police Service stated, "a lot of people don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, how to merge properly."  30% of respondents to a 2016 poll stated that the main reason they avoid Deerfoot Trail is because they do not feel safe on the freeway.
  In 2015, plans for improvements to Deerfoot Trail near Southland Drive were cancelled and a study was initiated to determine the best course of action to begin improving the freeway.  The Calf Robe Bridge is also prone to collisions as its concrete deck becomes slick in cold weather, and large curves precede and follow the bridge.  A 1996 crash on the bridge claimed the life of a teenager when her northbound car struck the rear of a fire truck parked in the left shoulder attending to an accident in the southbound lanes.  Poor visibility due to the curve prior to the bridge was a contributing factor in a successful lawsuit by the girl's family against Calgary.
caption: Partial cloverleaf interchange at 17 Avenue SE in south Calgary
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